Warming up

[OvidiuCavasdan]

40D, EF 100 mm Macro
F/13
1/250 sec
ISO 640
Early morning sun, manual mode, hh elbows on ground, pop-up flash, sun was low, had to avoid my own shadow and was not possible to get perfect paralel to sensor plane.
Not sure about the ID but this could be Issoria lathonia, Queen of Spain Fritillary.

[Julie Kenward]

It certainly does look like a fritillary! I think you did very well considering being down on your elbows, Ovidiu. You might try a little high pass sharpening on the wing edges to see if that would crisp them up just a little. I also wonder if you could do anything with the color of the BG...it's really ugly compared to the beautiful orange of the butterfly. One thing I tried was to select the BG and then drop the saturation way down in a hue/saturation adjustment layer. Not sure how I felt about it but it did take the pinkish tone of rock away.

[Allen Sparks]

Beautiful butterfly. The background really detracts from it though. The suggestions made by Julie sound good to me.

[Ken Childs]

I agree with the previous comments but also know that if I'd seen an awesome butterfly like this, I would have taken the shot no matter what the BG looked like. :)

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Ovidiu,
Agree with all the above comments....how could you not take the image of that lovely BF! Only thing I will add to Jules comments and something for you to possibly try......darkening that BG some too....maybe even a lot if you are OK with such things......heck.....I might even try lighter if I was playing in PP'ing......just some things for you to explore.

[Steve Maxson]

Well done on the very colorful butterfly, Ovidiu. I agree that the background detracts from this beauty.